Dakota Beacon

Thursday, January 10, 2019

Something attention-getting in the major stories of 2018 was the circus otherwise known as the Kavanaugh hearings. From all appearances, increasingly the mob is a tool of the left in forcing their issues. It is also apparent that there is no equivalent tool on the right. The very idea of a community organizer is to stir up a mob as a means to a political end. The Kavanaugh hearings were the zenith of the premise that the mob is organized and controlled by the left. Democrats issued hearing tickets to disrupt. To the left, any speech or ideas they don’t like must be silenced. They are not interested in competing ideas. That is the Democrat mob mentality.

A French social psychologist, Gustave Le Bon, observed the characteristics and behavior of a mob. His book, “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind,” written in 1896, was read by socialists Hitler and Mussolini. Liberals and particularly the media have attempted to paint Le Bon as “controversial” and “reactionary.” It may be that Le Bon’s book too closely describes themselves for comfort. Liberals and the media are part of the mob.

In Le Bon’s view, a crowd is identified as people with a mental unity (Le Bon’s term) distinct from individual personality. The psychology of a crowd combines heterogeneous and homogeneous characteristics into a collective mind. Mental unity include persons who acquire a sense of invincible power. Sentiments and acts become contagious. The conscious personality diminishes while thoughts and feelings trend toward group-think.

Resistance mobs blossomed after Donald Trump’s election and would fit into the category Le Bon describes as “crowd.” A few of these mobs by name, among dozens, include Our Revolution, Swing Left, Resurgent Left, Adopt-A-(blue)State, Movement 2018, The PussyHat Project, Emerge America, Ignite, Indivisible, and Higher Heights.

Breitbart News Network tabulated 639 instances of mob violence and harassment against Trump, his administration, and his supporters. Unfortunately, the media is complicit in normalizing and justifying violence and harassment by neither covering the stories nor condemning the incidences. This fits the resistance narrative. Here are examples found at Breitbart’s “Rap Sheet: 639.” (Google for the complete list.)

10/29/18 Actor James Cromwell: There will be “blood in the streets” unless Trump stopped.

10/29/18 Twitter allows 179 death threats against Trump.

10/29/18 Shots fired into South Daytona Republican Party office.

10/25/18 New York Times runs story fantasizing about Trump’s assassination.

10/25/18 GOP headquarters vandalized in Iowa City, IA.

10/23/18 Boulder thrown through Rep. McCarthy’s (R-CA) office window.

10/21/18 Obama’s former Secretary of State Reines says harassment of McConnell and wife “is fine.”

10/20/18 Angry leftists harass McConnell and wife at restaurant, “Why don’t you get out of here?”

10/17/18 Professor calls for harassing Republicans at restaurants, sticking “fingers in their salads.”

10/16/18 MN Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party employee calls for Republicans to be beheaded.

One thing the 600-plus examples have in common – they are left of center on the political spectrum. The 10/18/18 Investor’s Business Daily has it right. “What happens when men physically assault female politicians…? If those women are Republicans and the attackers are leftists, Democrats greet them with silence, excuses, or worse. So left-wing violence grows.”

In the end, liberals’ use of the mob in creating unrest is more about acquiring power than it is about seeking justice.